Australia's former deputy prime minister Barnaby Joyce left his wife and formed a relationship with his former press secretary, Vikki Campion, with whom he now has two sons. Screenshot / Channel 9
Australia's former deputy prime minister Barnaby Joyce left his wife and formed a relationship with his former press secretary, Vikki Campion, with whom he now has two sons. Screenshot / Channel 9
Former Australian prime minister Malcolm Turnbull is set to lift the lid on Canberra's culture of "boozing and screwing staff" in an explosive episode of ABC's Four Corners programme that the current government has tried to stop going to air.
The Australian's Media Diary columnist Nick Tabakoff broke the story on Monday morning that "emails have been fired off by the government to the ABC, addressing or copying-in the public broadcaster's managing director David Anderson, news chief Gaven Morris, Four Corners executive producer Sally Neighbour and researcher Lucy Carter" over the story, which was due to air tonight.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison said this morning that the ABC had a duty to "uphold its charter" when asked if his office or other senior ministers had applied pressure over the issue.
"We would just expect that the ABC, always, that they would act in an independent and an unbiased ... way," Morrison said.
Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison: "I am not in the habit of responding to allegations based on a programme I haven't seen." Photo / AFP
"If they are going to make inquiries I would think they would want to do them across the political spectrum.
"I more than supported it. I ensured that it continued," Morrison said about a so-called "bonk ban" that Turnbull introduced, which was designed to stop relationships between politicians and staff members.
But despite the complaints to the ABC, Morrison conceded he had not seen the programme.
"I am not in the habit of responding to allegations based on a programme I haven't seen. I don't even know what's in it,'' he said.
"The political pressure applied to the ABC behind the scenes over this story has been extreme and unrelenting,'' she tweeted. "All credit to the ABC's leadership for withstanding it. 'Inside the Canberra Bubble', tonight on #4Corners."
The Four Corners investigation follows revelations in Turnbull's memoir that he once asked a married minister for a "please explain" over his frequent visits to Canberra bars with young women amid concerns it was a "bad look" in the bonk ban era.
Turnbull introduced the bonk ban after it emerged that former deputy prime minister Barnaby Joyce had left his wife and formed a relationship with his former press secretary, with whom he now has two sons.
In the book, Turnbull writes that Joyce was "a champion of traditional marriage while practising traditional adultery".
He also complains about a Queensland MP George Christensen's frequent visits to "seedy" bars in Asia.
"Against the advice of our embassy in the Philippines, he had been staying in seedy hotels in Angeles City, which was not only recklessly unsafe but made him vulnerable to being compromised,'' he writes.
"For a member in a marginal seat to be spending nearly a third of the year overseas, on full pay as an MP, staying in a seedy part of Manila and hanging out in bars and nightclubs beggared belief.
"The hypocrisy made me sick."
Christensen has always described the claims as "vile smear", insisting he was simply visiting his fiancee in the Philippines.
Ex-PM Malcolm Turnbull's memoir contains revelations about Canberra's culture of "boozing and screwing staff". Photo / Mark Mitchell
Earlier this year, Turnbull revealed in his book "A Bigger Picture" that Joyce gave an "unequivocal" assurance he was not in a sexual relationship with staff member Vikki Campion before it was subsequently revealed she was pregnant with his son.
"Barnaby had become aware of what [journalist Sharri] Markson was chasing so I asked him what was going on," Turnbull wrote.
"He gave me an unequivocal assurance he wasn't in a sexual relationship with Vikki.
"He told me Vikki was lonely, didn't have family to support her and was concerned about her health, so to provide moral support he'd accompanied her to the doctor for some check-ups.
"Without questioning his assurance, I reminded him, just for the record, that it was simply not defensible for him, as deputy prime minister, to be having an affair with one of his staff. It could only end badly, I told him, and he agreed."
Joyce subsequently told The Australian he wasn't obliged to answer personal questions.
"If it was something personal, as if I was going to tell him," he said. "There are personal questions you are not obliged to answer like 'do you masturbate?'"
